Essentially the three campaigns are all going to be on seperate discs, and need to be purchased as such. I'm not a fan of this at all, as unless they lower the price of the discs OR make each campaign a whole game in itself, I see no reason (other than MONIES) why they would do this.

(edited by El Nastio on 11.10.08 1219)You know, I really don't know what to put here. Close your eyes and thank of something funny!

ArenaNet did something like this for Guild Wars (release full campaigns). The difference:

- ArenaNet offers an MMORPG that after the initial purchase is free to play.- The newer campaigns offered improvements to over the original, such as additional professions and skills only found in those campaigns.- The campaigns are all stand-alone. To get the full story you do not need all of them (unless you want the FULL "Guild Wars" story).- If you have all three campaigns you can take one character through all three of them.

If Blizzard offers something like that then I could see this being alright. But this is an RTS, not an MMO.

PS: People should try Guild Wars!

(edited by El Nastio on 12.10.08 1106)You know, I really don't know what to put here. Close your eyes and thank of something funny!

I do know that I have a brother in law who is in highschool, and won't have $150 to pay for three full price games in order to play Starcraft II. His favorite game of all time is Starcraft.

$60 really should be enough for a gamee. It's already too much. I don't know what the pricing is going to be on this but I'm guessing you are going to be out $100-$150 for all three campaigns, and that sucks.

ArenaNet is a team of people who used to be Blizzard employees. They left Blizzard and created Guild Wars. It’s an MMO much the same as World of Warcraft, however they do not charge you monthly fees. Instead, once in awhile they release a full campaign. Each of the newer campaigns offer something new to the series, and are full games unto themselves. For example;

- Guild Wars Prophecies: The original game. You get a fantastic MMO experience.

- Guild Wars Factions: Added two new professions (classes) and the introduction of “Alliance Battles”. Also, additional skills were added.

- Guild Wars Nightfall: Added another two classes were added, along with heroes (customizable AI friendlies who can join you if you’re playing alone).

Each of the campaigns are a full game unto themselves, however if you buy all three you can take one character and have him (or her) travel to each of the games. For example, the character you made in Prophecies can eventually go to the Nightfall campaign and get heroes. Or your Necromancer from Nightfall can go to the continent in Factions and pick up the Flesh Golem skill.

The difference is in this case is ArenaNet not only offered unique features in the subsequent campaigns, but also spaced out the release of the titles over the course of a couple of years. This is due to because of the lack of monthly fees, they need to produce new content to make the monies.

They also made an expansion (Eye of the North) which requires you to have only ONE of the three other titles. The expansion, of course, is cheaper than the other games (and is often seen being bundled with one of the campaigns at a slightly higher cost).

The reason why I mention these things is that Blizzard could be trying to do the same thing with Starcraft II. Make three wholly independent games that can be played separately. That said, they’re releasing them all at the same time without any additions/exclusive content, so it does cast some doubt as to what their motives are (ie; is Blizzard being greedy).

Oh, and another gem from BlizzCon, which is EVEN MORE alarming (yes, even more alarming):

Of course, I’m highly into a award winning/critically acclaimed MMO right now that charges no monthly fees, so if Battle.net starts costing money I'm not suffering too much. Guild Wars' official site is right here.

We'll see what happens. My brother is pretty insane about Starcraft. I mean he's been playing it for over half his life (crikey, that's weird). He and his friends make levels and know way too much about the original, the expansions, and the upcoming game(s).

He is also looking forward to Diablo, but he plays Eve instead of WoW.

I have a sneaky suspicion that he will be faced with the Starcraft or car insurance question. His bus trip is an hour each way right now. Even with that, I think he'll be torn.

You can actually buy all three main campaigns right here (The W at Amazon) for $46.99 US, which is an amazing deal. I'm not lying when I say you'll spend hundreds of hours playing it. And as mentioned, you only pay the initial cost (no monthly fees).

I don't shill often....but this is one of those times. It's an excellent game, and if you like MMO's at all you should try it.

Unrelated note; Zed or Guru, does the refferal with thing you guys have with with Amazon happen automatically when we post something from there? If someone actually buys it using that link I want you guys to get something out of it.

{ Not the way you did it. But I'll fix it. ;-) - CRZ }

(edited by CRZ on 14.10.08 0800)You know, I really don't know what to put here. Close your eyes and thank of something funny!

Not sure how this turned into a Guild Wars discussion, but I do feel compelled to come and clarify one point about it. It most certainly is not 'an MMO much the same as World of Warcraft'. Guild Wars isn't an MMO at all, which is why there's no subscription fee. It's best to think of Guild Wars as being a game like Diablo, except instead of having a chat room interface on Battle.net to set up games and talk to other players, that takes place in-game in towns where people move around with their character.

All the actual gameplay is done like Diablo, where an instance of the zone/area is created for you and whoever's in your party. It's not like World of Warcraft where you can run into other players in the world at large.